Devastation
by autumnrose2010
Summary: All human. Dimitri comforts Rose after the loss of one of their unborn twins.
1. Heartbreak

The obstetrician, Dr. Barnes, frowned as he moved the fetal heartbeat monitor over Rose's swollen abdomen.

"I seem to be only picking up one heartbeat, and it's quite faint," he told her. "I'm going to have to do an ultrasound to find out what's going on."

Rose felt a rising panic, which she struggled to keep under control. She lay on her back taking deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself as Dr. Barnes smeared the cold gel on her belly. Soon the now-familiar shadowy figures that were her twin sons came into view.

Dr. Barnes stared at the screen for a long time, then turned to Rose with a grave expression on his face. "I'm very sorry, Mrs. Belikov, but I detect no sign of life at all from twin B." Rose felt as if a knife had just been plunged into her heart. "And twin A appears to be in distress. As you can see, the cord is wrapped around his neck. I'll have to transfer you to the hospital right away for a C-section."

"Can I please call my husband first?" Still reeling from the shock of the obstetrician's devastating words, Rose was desperate to talk to Dimitri. With shaking hands, she dialed the telephone number of the academy where he worked and asked to speak to him.

"Roza?"

"They're about to rush me into surgery, Dimitri. One of the twins is...dead." She had to choke back a sob. "The other one's in trouble. They have to do a C-section right away to try to save him."

"I will come right away, Roza."

Rose was immediately taken by ambulance to the hospital, which was a five-minute ride from Dr. Barnes' office, and prepped for surgery. Still numb with shock, the last thing she was aware of was the needle being plunged into her arm.

Suddenly she opened her eyes to see Dimitri sitting by her bedside, gazing at her with tears in his eyes.

"Is...he...all right?" Her throat was so dry that she could hardly speak.

Dimitri nodded. "The doctor said they got him out just in time. The cord was wrapped around his neck. He is alive, but the doctor says that there may be brain damage. It is too soon to tell."

"The other one?"

Dimitri began to sob, and Rose felt tears spring to her own eyes.

"He is so tiny, Rose," Dimitri said after regaining his composure. "I never saw a baby so tiny!"

"I want to see him!" Rose yearned to hold her tiny new son so fiercely that she could barely stand it. "When can I see him?"

"I will talk to the nurse." Dimitri left, and a moment later, the nurse appeared.

"How are you feeling, Mrs. Belikov?"

"One of my babies just died! How do you _think _I feel?"

"Your vitals are normal," the nurse said smoothly, ignoring Rose's outburst. "You're ready to go back to your room now."

"I want to see my son!"

"He's in the NICU. You're going to have to be patient."

"What about..." Rose couldn't bring herself to say the words.

"Pathology. I believe your husband is making the funeral arrangements as we speak."

She was taken to her room on a gurney and transferred to her bed. The nurse poured her a cup of water from a Styrofoam pitcher and then left her alone with her thoughts.

After awhile Dimitri reappeared, his shoulders stooped in sorrow.

"Did you see him?" Rose asked. Dimitri nodded. "Does he look..._very _bad?"

"No. He just looks like he is asleep. The doctor says that I can take you to the nursery in a wheelchair now." Rose wondered whether Dimitri had told her the truth about the dead twin or if he was trying to spare her further grief.

Dimitri helped his wife into the wheelchair and wheeled her out of the room and down the hall. She rolled past the large window with all the healthy pink newborns behind it. A nurse handed paper masks to Dimitri and Rose, and Dimitri pushed the wheelchair through a set of double doors to another section of the nursery, a section in which incubators were lined against the wall and various types of equipment were omnipresent.

She gasped when she first saw him. Dimitri hadn't exaggerated. To her he looked no larger than a baby doll. His head seemed disproportionally large, his arms and legs were as narrow as sticks, and fine, downy hair covered his body. Tubes ran up his nose, and he was connected to several monitors.

"Oh, my baby!" Rose sobbed. "Please, can I hold him?"

"I'm sorry," the nurse said. "His condition is very delicate, and stress must be kept to an absolute minimum. You may hold him when he's a bit stronger."

"But how could a mother holding her baby stress him out?"

"Any type of physical contact whatsoever could stress him out," the nurse replied.

Rose watched her tiny son's sleeping form for awhile, marveling at how pitifully still he was. Then Dimitri turned the wheelchair around to take her back to her room.

"Take me to pathology," she said.

"I don't think that would be a good idea," Dimitri replied.

"Take me to pathology right now! I want to see the other one!" Rose was practically shouting.

With a heavy sigh, Dimitri pushed the wheelchair onto the elevator and pushed the button for the basement. In the darkened hallways, the sound of the wheels on the tiles seemed to reverberate. Dimitri pushed the wheelchair down an isolated hallway past a door labeled 'Autopsy Room.'

Suddenly they were confronted by a young man wearing white scrubs. "I'm sorry, but you're not allowed beyond this point."

"I want to see my son!" Rose demanded.

The young man disappeared behind a door, only to reappear with a similarly-dressed older man a few minutes later. "I'm very sorry," the older man told Rose. "Of course you may see him if you want."

Behind an adjacent door labeled 'Refrigeration' was a stretcher covered by a white sheet. The older man opened the door, wheeled the stretcher out, and removed the sheet.

He was just about exactly the same size as his twin brother, but unlike the living twin, his skin had a bluish tinge. Rose reached out to touch the tiny body. To her it felt as cold as ice.

"Good-bye, little one," she whispered.


	2. Dark Days

Dimitri wheeled Rose back to her hospital room, and as soon as she was alone with her husband, she began to cry her heart out. Dimitri held her and cried with her.

"What are we gonna tell Sasha and Tanya?" she asked. Alexandra and Tatiana, nicknamed Sasha and Tanya, were their two young daughters. "They know that there were supposed to be two baby brothers."

"I suppose we'll just have to tell them that God took one of their baby brothers to heaven."

"Did you make the...arrangements?" Rose asked.

"The funeral will be the day after you get out of the hospital. I knew that you would want to go."

"Thank you." Emotionally drained, Rose lay back in bed and closed her eyes. A moment later, she felt Dimitri gently brushing the hair back from her forehead.

"Get some rest, Roza_. _It's been a very bad day for you."

"Don't leave me, Dimitri."

"Of course I'll stay."

After awhile, a woman brought in a tray with Rose's dinner on it. Although Dimitri gently urged her to eat, she was only able to take a few bites.

"I need to go home for the girls," Dimitri said several hours later. "They're with a neighbor. I will come back tomorrow as soon as I can. Will you be all right?"

"I'll be all right," Rose said weakly. "Good-bye, Dimitri. I love you."

"I love you too, Roza." He kissed her lips, then was gone.

Rose fell asleep almost immediately and slept until a different woman from the night before brought her breakfast the following morning. When she awakened, her thoughts immediately went to her tiny son.

"Is he all right?" she asked.

"I wouldn't know," the woman replied. "I only deliver the meals, but I'll be happy to check for you."

A short time later, the pediatrician, Dr. Kelly, arrived. "He's still holding his own," he told Rose. "He's not out of the woods yet by any means, but he's a real fighter. I think he's going to be all right."

"Thank you." Rose was immensely relieved.

A little while after Dr. Kelly left, Dimitri appeared.

"Sasha and Tanya..."

"They're fine," he assured her. "They're with the neighbor again. What about you, Roza? Did you sleep all right?"

Rose nodded. "You?" She noticed that he looked as if he'd been crying again.

He nodded. "It's just so hard, Roza. I never that knew anything could be this hard."

"I know."

He went to her, and they embraced. "How is the little one?" he asked. Rose told him what Dr. Kelly had said.

"That's good," he replied.

After awhile, a clerk arrived with the form to be filled out for the birth certificate.

"I want to name him Matthew," Rose told her.

"Is there a middle name?"

"Dimitrovich," said Dimitri.

"And did you want to name..." The woman looked awkward.

"Yes," Rose said. "He deserves a name." She thought for a minute. "Michael."

"Same middle name," Dimitri added.

"Very well." The woman looked relieved. Even though she realized that it must be a routine and not terribly infrequent part of her job, Rose still felt a little bit sorry for her.

She was able to eat most of her lunch, and later, pushing a pole with her IV suspended from it and leaning heavily on Dimitri, she slowly and painfully walked to the nursery. To her it seemed like a couple of miles instead of just down the hall.

At last she reached little Matthew's incubator and looked in at his sleeping form. He looked much the same as he had the previous day. Rose gazed at his tiny balled fist, at the miniscule fingers with the almost-not-even-there fingernails. They were ever so tiny and yet the most perfect thing she'd ever seen. In her heart she felt a deep ache.

She gently placed both hands palm down on the side of the incubator. "Mommy loves you, Matthew, and Daddy does, too."

* * *

Before Rose left the hospital, she was finally allowed to hold her son. She sat in the wheelchair as a nurse gently unhooked all the wires, lifted the tiny baby, and gently placed him into his mother's arms.

"Matthew," Rose whispered. Tears fell from her eyes and dripped onto the soft baby blue blanket as she lightly touched his paper-thin skin. He opened his eyes and looked up at her with clear dark blue orbs. Her heart melted. She lifted his face to hers and softly kissed his cheek, then handed him to Dimitri.


	3. The Funeral

Going back home with Dimitri and leaving baby Matthew in the hospital was one of the hardest things Rose had ever done. Although she trusted the doctors and nurses to take good care of him, her arms ached to hold him, and as she rode away from the hospital, she felt as if she were leaving a part of herself behind.

Dimitri understood how she felt. Silently he squeezed her hand before grabbing the steering wheel.

She'd never been so happy to see Sasha and Tanya, and she hugged both little girls as tightly as she could, never wanting to let them go.

"Your mother needs to rest," Dimitri told his daughters. "She has just had surgery. I trust that you will both be quiet and behave."

"We will, Daddy," Sasha promised, and Tanya nodded her agreement.

"I'm so happy to see you both!" Rose exclaimed. "Was everything all right while I was gone?"

"She cried last night," said Sasha.

"Did not!" Tanya said indignantly.

"Did too! I heard you, so there." Sasha smiled smugly.

"What's he look like, Mommy?" asked Tanya. "When can we see him?"

"He looks a lot like you did when you were first born, except that he's very tiny," Rose replied. "He's about the size of one of your dolls. He has to stay in the hospital until he's a little bit bigger and stronger, and then he can come home to live with us."

Sasha and Tanya exchanged significant glances. "What happened to the other baby brother?" Sasha asked at last.

"His umbilical cord was wrapped too tightly around his neck for him to breathe, so he couldn't live. We're going to say good-bye to him tomorrow."

Sasha and Tanya had about a million questions each about death, dead bodies, caskets, funerals, and burials, and Rose and Dimitri tried their best to answer them. At last Dimitri offered to take the girls out so that Rose could get some rest, and she lay down and fell asleep almost right away. Several hours later, she awakened to the sound of the TV and the aroma of Chinese take-out. She arose and wandered into the kitchen, where she found Dimitri clearing away the girls' meals.

"Ah, you are awake now." He came to her with a concerned expression on his face. "Are you all right?"

"Oh, Dimitri!" She put her arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder. He held her and rubbed her back soothingly.

"Eat something," he urged her after awhile. "You'll feel better."

To her surprise, Rose found that she was ravenous. She'd hardly eaten anything at all for the several days she'd been in the hospital, and now she couldn't gobble up the food quickly enough.

"Careful! Don't eat your fingers too," Dimitri teased her. They laughed together for the first time since before the ordeal had began.

Later, the family all watched 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' together, and Dimitri got the girls ready for bed, then joined Rose in the living room, where they watched a couple of hours of TV before going to bed themselves.

In the silence and the dark, Rose began to cry. Dimitri reached for her and pulled her close.

"I just can't stop thinking about him lying there in that incubator, all alone," she sobbed. "He's so _tiny..._and I want to hold him so _bad. _I have this deep, empty feeling inside, and it hurts so _much."_

"I know, Roza_." _Tenderly he kissed her face. "He'll be home soon. Everything's going to be all right." He held her and stroked her until she finally dozed off to sleep.

Baby Michael's funeral was the following day. It was overcast, damp, and rainy, matching Rose's mood perfectly. A few friends and neighbors were there. Rose stared at the tiny white casket as she listened to the minister's words.

Now Dimitri was touching her hand. "It's time to go now, Roza," he said gently.

The rain fell as Rose left the cemetery with her husband and daughters, staring at the tiny white casket until she couldn't see it anymore.


	4. Matthew Comes Home

A couple of weeks later, Dimitri and Rose were allowed to bring Matthew home from the hospital. He'd been moved from the NICU to the regular nursery. A nurse met them at its entrance and helped to strap the baby into the car seat. To Rose he still looked unbelievably tiny.

"Hi, Matthew." She spoke his name very softy, and he opened his eyes and gazed at her. "You're coming home today to meet your big sisters Sasha and Tanya. Won't that be fun?"

Dimitri carried the car seat to the car and fastened it into the middle of the back seat. Then he and Rose got into the car and rode the short ride home, stopping at the neighbors' briefly to pick up Sasha and Tanya. The girls sat one on either side of Matthew on the way home, gazing in silence at their sleeping baby brother.

Matthew began to cry when Rose removed him from his car seat at home, and Rose immediately felt both her breasts begin to leak, soaking the front of her shirt. Dimitri quickly got both girls occupied with a video game while Rose went into the bedroom to nurse her son for the very first time. Since her milk had come in, she'd used a breast pump and taken the milk to the hospital for Matthew, looking forward to the day when she'd be able to feed him herself.

Quickly she opened her shirt and nursing bra, and little Matthew latched on hungrily and began to nurse. Rose stroked the fuzzy down on the top of his head and watched as his soft spot pulsed. Soon he was asleep again, and she gently laid him in his crib and went to join Dimitri and the girls.

* * *

Caring for a newborn was physically draining at first, but after a few days, things settled down and life finally seemed back to normal. Sasha and Tanya were both crazy about their new baby brother. Rose showed them how to support his head when they held him so that it wouldn't fall back.

One night Rose was sitting in the rocking chair nursing Matthew and singing to him when she glanced up to see Dimitri watching her with a smile.

She smiled back. "What is it?"

He came to stand beside her and stroked her hair. "I was just thinking about what a wonderful wife and mother you are, Roza, and how lucky I am to have you."

She blushed with pleasure at the unexpected complement. "Well, I think I'm pretty lucky too."

Matthew had finished nursing and was fast asleep. Rose stood and gently laid him in his crib. Then Dimitrri took her into his arms and held her. "I love you, Roza."

"I love you too, Dimitri."

"I know that."

They went to bed and fell asleep in one another's arms.

_Many thanks to everyone who read and reviewed this story. :)_


End file.
